Dear friends,

I love counting the Omer. It’s weird, it’s archaic, it’s logistically unnecessary, and I relish it every year.

For the uninitiated, “counting the Omer” is a Jewish ritual of the current season. Beginning on the second night of Passover, every night we count (out loud) the days and weeks as they elapse, until we have counted 49 days, a.k.a., seven weeks. The following night, the holiday of Shavuot (celebrating the giving of the Torah) begins.

I love counting the Omer because I love small steps, incremental changes, seeding small habits, and watching them grow over time into big change. Like many people, my wife Keren and I have often used the Omer as an opportunity for self-improvement. One year, we meditated for a few minutes each day along with the Omer count. Another year, we used those seven weeks to start a “Whole 30”-style clean eating regime. Of course, that was before we had two kids under age five. Nowadays, if we manage to remember to count at all, it's usually after the kids are asleep and we've done the requisite clean up. Still, in theory if not always in practice, I appreciate counting the Omer!

As the pace of technological change accelerates, the Omer might also take on a new meaning: a beacon of insistent humanity.

For all the upheavals in the social, political, and geopolitical realms, the story of the past decade has also been shaped by enormous technological change. Newer technologies, such as AI, coupled with even more (now) familiar technologies like Zoom, Slack, and social media have been consequential. The early-2010s-style optimism about social media as a spreader of democracy has given way to widespread concerns about what various technologies are doing to our attention, and to our mental health. Both at work and at home, the rise of “dopamine culture” has led many thinkers to see that not only our work but also our minds are being changed. The pace and constant stimulation created by this technological environment can feel overwhelming for many people — including leaders (and including myself). A recent Chronicle of Philanthropy survey found that 58% of nonprofit CEOs struggle with work-life balance.

In that context, the Omer can serve as an important anchor.

The Omer is a holdover against a technology of automation. The Jewish calendar was originally a highly human affair, with no pre-planned number of days in each month. Yes, for most holidays the Torah lays out a specific day of the month on which the holidays begin, but the months themselves had no fixed starting dates; a new month only began when credible witnesses reported seeing a new moon to the court in Jerusalem. As soon as that happened, messengers rode away to carry the news of the new month to Jewish communities near and far. (The transit time for those messages account for why some holidays are just one day in Israel and two days in the Diaspora.)

Eventually, however, the calendar became “automated” — not by digital tools, but by accurate astronomical/mathematical calculations. It became possible to “fix” the future Jewish calendar not just for the coming Jewish month but the coming Jewish millennium — literally. Hebcal (an online Hebrew calendar tool) can tell you that one thousand years from now, in the Gregorian year 3024, Shavuot will fall on Sunday and Monday, June 6 and 7. The date is no less certain on the Hebrew calendar; Shavuot is the one biblical holiday for which the Torah does not explicitly specify a day of the Hebrew month on which it falls, but still, there is no uncertainty. Since it is 50 days after the beginning of Passover, Shavuot will always fall on the sixth day of the Hebrew month of Sivan. All that is to say: Technically, we don’t need to count the Omer. The future count is known. It is automated. It’s already done.

And yet, we count the Omer anyway. Stubbornly, personally, primitively — we count.

The Torah hints at why. In the verse that establishes counting the Omer (Leviticus 23:15), God commands, “Usfartem lakhem… / And you shall count for yourselves…”. We don’t count because the technical needs of Shavuot demand it. We count the Omer for ourselves. By counting, we are somehow served; we benefit.

In a world of automation, the Omer is a technology of defiant, artisanal inefficiency. And, in a world of distraction, the Omer is a technology of attention. It adds a moment of reflection and attention to the passing of each day. The days always seem to fly by; at this time of year, each day is, at least for a moment, acknowledged and (literally) accounted for.

Don’t, please, mistake my message as opposing technology. Every day I wear eyeglasses that allow me to see where my ancestors would have just bumped into things. Technology is fantastic! Innovation is good. Efficiency is marvelous. AI, like other technologies, may yet deliver us many phenomenal benefits.

But innovation and efficiency are not everything; they are not the sum or summit of goodness. And whenever we make huge changes — to our workflows and worlds, cultures and habits — we should remember to ask questions of what losses might accompany our gains. We should be curious and cautious, even as we don’t shrink from exploring new possibilities. Perhaps we should even make a point — even if just for part of the year (the Omer) or part of the week (Shabbat) — to carve out windows of non-stimulation. Perhaps we should shelter some archaic little holdovers of the analog, small islands in the rising technological stream, to remind us that these new paradigms are contingent choices and not eternal necessities.

Leadership, culture, relationships — not to mention love, trust, family, community, connection, and spirituality — these things cannot be automated. Yet they also can’t be assumed, neglected, or taken for granted. We need to tend them all, with duties and delights that the robots can’t do for us, whatever else (and it is much) they may soon do.

Painfully, this year, the count of the Omer isn’t the only count of days that the Jewish world is undertaking. The 49th day of the Omer this year will also be the 248th day since October 7th, 2023 — marking 35 weeks and three days since the brutal murder of 1,200 Israelis and the capture of hundreds of innocent hostages. We pray for the swift release of the hostages still in unimaginable captivity, for an end to the conflict, and for a sustainable peace and security for Israel, the Palestinian people, and the region.

May your Shavuot be meaningful; may our wounded world be healed; and may all of us always remember that our days inherently count.

Gali Cooks

President & CEO